我愣了一下，不由对我俩用词相同感到有趣。“从什么时候起，”我问道，“咱们成了把长大成人的子女叫做‘孩子’的人？”
4 We laugh briefly at the passage of time, at thoughts of our own mothers who still refer to us as 'the girls,' and then she pauses.
想到时光流逝，想到我们自己的母亲仍把我们叫做 “丫头”，我俩不由得笑出声来，随后她止住了笑。
5 \asks my old friend, \our kids become the people who come home only at holidays?\ “从什么时候起，”我的老朋友问道，“我们的孩子成了到节假日才回家的人？”两人心头一时又酸又甜。
6 (1)This is the week when our friends bring in the younger generation, eagerly harvesting them from bulging airports. We noisily arrange children, nieces, nephews, cousins around tables, placing them like good china that we take out for special occasions. 这个星期是我们的朋友们将小辈带回家的时候，是急切地把子女从人满为患的机场接回去的时候。 我们忙乱地安排子女，侄子侄女，堂兄弟表姐妹什么的在餐桌旁一一就坐，就跟摆放在特殊场合才偶尔一用的精美餐具似的。
7 These energetic offspring do not come over the river and through the woods anymore. They struggle past check-in counters and wrestle their gear into stuffed overhead bins. They migrate back on airlines whose owners pray with their overbooked hearts that the weather will hold. 这些精力旺盛的后辈不再穿林过河而来。他们挤过检票处，使劲地把行李塞进座位上方满满的行李箱。他们搭乘着民航客机飞回家，那些公司心里想着客满的航班，祈祷着好天气持续下去。
8 (2)It is a testimony to the joyful pull of family that Americans saturated the air and highways this week to return to the place they no longer live but nevertheless call home. To get home for the holidays.
这个星期美国人挤满飞机和公路，都想回到他们已不再居住，却仍称之为家的地方。这证明了家庭具有能给人带来喜悦的吸引力的一个明证。 回家去过节。
9 Yet my old friend has touched, however delicately, on that other truth about a country scattered over generations and geography. We have gone from family life as everyday, from knowing every sock in our children's drawers and every frown on their faces, to welcoming them home to designated guest rooms.
但我的老朋友很微妙地触及了另外一个事实，即这个国家一代又一代的人散布在天南地北。我们的家庭生活原本平平淡淡，没有变化，连孩子抽屉里的袜子，他们脸上任何一道不悦神情都一清二楚，现在却要迎接他们回家，把他们安置在指定的客房里。
10 We have visitation rights in each other's lives now, say my friend, a mother in 617 who looks forward to greeting the children from 415 and 011. We keep in touch, we catch up, we say hellos and goodbyes. But we are still trying to learn how to compress \quantities.
我们相互拥有探视权，我的朋友说。她是位母亲，住在电话区号为617的地方，盼望着迎接分别住在区号为415和011地区的子女回家。我们保持联系，我们互通信息，我们相互问好，再依依道别。但我们仍试图学会如何把团圆的“美好时光”压缩的短些，但相聚的次数要多些。
11 My friend is not complaining. Neither of us longs to return to those wonderful yesterdays. The nests that once felt empty now feel roomy. 我的朋友并没有抱怨。我们谁都无意退回到那美好的往昔。一度显得空落落的老巢如今显得宽宽敞敞。
12 More to the point we raised our children to look over the horizons. We told them, the world is yours, go for it. One by one, they went for it, to 305 and 215 and 406. It is, after all, the American way.
更重要的是，我们把子女养育成人，是要他们眺望远方。我们跟他们说，世界是你们的，去拥有这个世界。他们一个个去拥有世界了，有的去了305，有的去了215，有的去了506。毕竟，这就是美国的生活方式。
13 So we email and travel and are grateful at how much easier it is to keep in touch -- at least virtual touch -- today than when our parents were young. We take joy in the \own lives.
于是我们收发电子邮件，我们旅行，想到如今保持联系――至少是虚拟的联系――要比我们自己父母年轻时便捷得多，不由心存感激。我们为孩子们创建自己的生活而深感欢欣。
14 Yet at times an unpatriotic thought crosses our minds. Is this American way, this long-distance family, an odd tradition as unique to our people as Thanksgiving?
然而，偶尔我们脑子里会掠过一个不那么爱国的念头。难道这就是美国方式，家庭成员相距如此遥远，这种与感恩节同样独特的不同寻常的国民传统？
15 We are a nation of movers, founded by people on pilgrimages, populated by those who were willfully or forcibly uprooted. Our national mythology is based on the lure of kicking out and starting fresh. (3)We moved west and west again on a promise of the last best place, which turned out to be just a way station. 我们是一个迁徙者的国度，由清教徒前辈移民创立，有意或被迫离乡背井者曾在这里居住。我们的民族神话建立在离开家园，重新开始这一诱惑之上。我们西进再西进，期待得到最后那片最好的土地，而那却只是路上一个小站而已。
16 Even Robert Frost's most familiar and most American definition -- \is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in\where you stay.
就连罗伯特·弗罗斯特那最为人所知,最美国化的定义――“家就是那个当你不得不前往时，他们必须接纳你的所在”――也带有其潜台词，家不是羁留之所。
17 From the middle of the age spectrum, my friend and I have seen elders move from house to condo, north to south, aging sunbirds still migrating. On the other side of the generational
sandwich we watch our children's words. They are \home\
作为中年人，我和朋友见过年长者从独立的住宅搬入公寓套间，从北方迁往南方，老了的太阳鸟仍迁徙不已。在一代又一代人的夹层的另一端，我们留意着自己子女的用词。他们星期二“回家来”，星期天 “回家去”。
18 Today many Americans find it hard to answer the question \all hold dual citizenship? Does the national concern about weaker family ties say less about our feelings than about our geography? 今天，许多美国人觉得难以回答“你是哪儿人”这个问题。我们是否都拥有双重籍贯？国民对越发薄弱的家庭纽带的关注难道更着眼于地域，而非我们的情感？
19 These questions hang lightly in the November air as we turn the subject from comings and goings of children to the advantages and disadvantages of chestnuts in the stuffing. This is the time, after all, of celebrating reunion, not musings about separation.
这些问题在11月的气氛中并不显得重要，我们的话题从子女归来转到火鸡填料里加栗子的好处与缺陷。毕竟这是欢庆团圆之时，不是默想离别痛苦的时候。
20 \table. It is each other. And somewhere between the turkey and pies we settle down to savor togetherness.
“孩子们”就要回家了。把我们带回摆满食物的餐桌旁的，不是食品匮乏，而是我们彼此。在享用火鸡与馅饼的间隙，我们定下心来品味团圆的温馨。
21 (4)Over this Thanksgiving holiday and in this restless country, we stop and feast on family. 在这个人们流动不停的国度里，整个感恩节期间我们始终留在家中享受天伦之乐。
unit 6 The Last Leaf
When Johnsy fell seriously ill, she seemed to lose the will to hang on to life. The doctor held out little hope for her. Her friends seemed helpless. Was there nothing to be done?
约翰西病情严重，她似乎失去了活下去的意志。医生对她不抱什么希望。朋友们看来也爱莫能助。难道真的就无可奈何了吗？
The Last Leaf
O. Henry
1 At the top of a three-story brick building, Sue and Johnsy had their studio. \familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at a cafe on Eighth Street and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so much in tune that the joint studio resulted. 最后一片叶子 欧·亨利
在一幢三层砖楼的顶层，苏和约翰西辟了个画室。“约翰西”是乔安娜的昵称。她们一位来自缅因州，一位来自加利福尼亚。两人相遇在第八大街的一个咖啡馆，发现各自在艺术品味、菊苣色拉，以及灯笼袖等方面趣味相投，于是就有了这个两人画室。
2 That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the district, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Johnsy was among his victims. She lay, scarcely moving on her bed, looking through the small window at the blank side of the next brick house. 那是5月里的事。到了11月，一个医生称之为肺炎的阴森的隐形客闯入了这一地区，用它冰冷的手指东碰西触。约翰西也为其所害。她病倒了，躺在床上几乎一动不动，只能隔着小窗望着隔壁砖房那单调沉闷的侧墙。
3 One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a bushy, gray eyebrow. 一天上午，忙碌的医生扬了扬灰白的浓眉，示意苏来到过道。
4 \lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind? “她只有一成希望，”他说。“那还得看她自己是不是想活下去。你这位女朋友已经下决心不想好了。她有什么心事吗？”
5 \ “她――她想有一天能去画那不勒斯湾，”苏说。
6 \-- bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about twice -- a man, for instance?\
“画画？――得了。她有没有别的事值得她留恋的――比如说，一个男人？”
7 \ “男人？”苏说。“难道一个男人就值得――可是，她没有啊，大夫，没有这码子事。”
8 \begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines.\marched into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling a merry tune. “好吧，”大夫说。“我会尽一切努力，只要是科学能做到的。可是，但凡病人开始计算她出殡的行列里有几辆马车的时候，我就要把医药的疗效减去一半。”大夫走后，苏去工作室哭了一场。随后她携着画板大步走进约翰西的房间，口里吹着轻快的口哨。
9 Johnsy lay, scarcely making a movement under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. She was looking out and counting -- counting backward.
约翰西躺在被子下几乎一动不动，脸朝着窗。她望着窗外，数着数――倒数着数！
10 \and \ “12，”她数道，过了一会儿“11”，接着数“10”和“9”；再数“8”和“7”，几乎一口同时数下来。
11 Sue looked out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had blown away its leaves, leaving it almost bare.
苏朝窗外望去。外面有什么好数的呢？外面只看到一个空荡荡的沉闷的院子，还有20英尺开外那砖房的侧墙，上面什么也没有。一棵古老的常青藤爬到半墙高。萧瑟秋风吹落了枝叶，藤上几乎光秃秃的。
12 \were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.\ “6”，约翰西数着，声音几乎听不出来。“现在叶子掉落得快多了。三天前差不多还有100片。数得我头都疼。可现在容易了。又掉了一片。这下子只剩5片了。”
13 \
“5片什么，亲爱的？”
14 \days. Didn't the doctor tell you?\
“叶子。常青藤上的叶子。等最后一片叶子掉了，我也就得走了。三天前我就知道会这样。大夫没跟你说吗？”